An article in the People newspaper claiming Charlotte Church had drunkenly proposed to her boyfriend at a pub karaoke night could be seen as defamatory because she was a "star", a high court judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Tugendhat said the story, which claimed she "belted out the Ronnettes' Be My Baby then slumped in a chair next to her man" and proposed, had to be seen in the context of the fact that Church was well known.

"The behaviour described might not be defamatory if attributed to some other people, but to attribute such drunken behaviour to a star such as the claimant is in my judgment clearly capable of defaming her," Tugendhat added.

Church, the 26-year-old singer and mother of two, launched libel proceedings against the owner of the People, Mirror Group Newspapers, following the publication of the article last November.

The paper fully accepted that the story was untrue, that the singer and her boyfriend were five miles away in a different town giving a concert that night and published an apology.

However, earlier this month MGN applied to have the libel action struck out on the grounds that to make "a marriage proposal to their long-term partner cannot be defamatory and the fact that this is said to have been done in public cannot change that".

Tugendhat was giving his written reasons on Tuesday for a ruling he made relating to the case two weeks ago.

Mark Warby, QC for MGN at the original hearing, said it was not defamatory to suggest Church had been drinking and was so drunk she had to be helped to a taxi.

Warby had argued she was a well-known celebrity and did not claim to be teetotal or not to like drinking. He had added there was no suggestion in the article that her behaviour was embarrassing to anyone.

David Sherborne, counsel for Church, had argued that a marriage proposal was a "significant act" and it had been "demeaned by her doing so in the circumstances alleged" and this was "the defamatory sting".

Tugendhat on Wednesday said "whether or not the words complained of are defamatory depends on the context in which they appear. In my judgment the words complained of are clearly capable of bearing the meaning attributed to them by the claimant."

He added that as it has not been determined whether a trial should be heard before a jury, it would be wrong for him "to express any view" as to what the words in the article "actually meant".

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